Hey guys, thanks so much for stopping by the YouTube channel.

Today we're going to talk about all things IT band syndrome.

What I want to start off with is a little anatomy.

What is your IT band?

How is pain generated there?

Why foam rolling is not as good of an idea as you think it is and how you can effectively fix this pain to eliminate it from your body and get back to training.

So first, a little anatomy.

What is the IT band?

Your IT band is a thick piece of dense connective tissue that runs all the way up from your hip and runs all the way down and connects at your lateral part of your knee right here.

It envelops part of your TFL muscle and has connections with your lateral quad, your lateral glute max back here.

Now, how is IT band syndrome pain started?

Well, because your IT band connects all the way down here at the lateral part of your knee, right underneath it is a fairly highly innervated piece of fat.

It's called a fat pad.

What happens is that if your IT band is excessively stiff or taut, it can push against that highly innervated piece of fat and that is how pain is generated.

A lot of people at first thought it was friction of it snapping back and forth, but recent research shows us that it's actually compression where that IT band is pushed against the side of that fat pad and that is how that pain is generated.

Now, here's the big question.

Why do we not want to foam roll with IT band syndrome?

It's because when you foam roll, a lot of people, they will foam roll at the site of pain.

They will foam roll that lateral leg.

Now, what is that doing?

We are adding compression.

Do we want to add compression to a compression syndrome?

No, because all we're going to do is make symptoms worse.

So this is not a good idea.

Now, can you foam roll the lower leg?

Sure.

If you have IT band syndrome pain at your lateral knee, I have no problem with you foam rolling up here, lateral quad, getting into that TFL that's excessively stiff.

I have no problem with that, but the big thing is that I do not want to see someone foam rolling their lateral knee when you have IT band syndrome because you are only adding more compression to a compression syndrome.

Now, here's the deal.

How do we actually fix the why behind IT band syndrome?

Well, it all starts up at the hips.

If you remember the movie Happy Gilmore, Adam Sandler had a golf coach named Chubbs.

And what did Chubbs used to always say?

It's all in the hips.

It's all in the hips.

It's all in the hips.

Get off of me.

Hey, just easing the tension, baby.

That's where IT band syndrome starts.

That's the why behind it.

You have a lot of muscles that surround the hip.

Primarily, if we look at the lateral side, we have your glute medius and your glute max.

And those muscles also have a firm connection to the IT band.

Well, if they're not functioning correctly, they're not turning on appropriately, we have a problem in coordination or strength, that means that other muscles like your TFL are going to become overactive or over-facilitated.

Those then impart a very stiff tension on the IT band, which leads to the syndrome all the way down at your knee.

So even though your symptoms of IT band syndrome are all the way down at your lateral knee, why it's occurring is all the way up at the hip at a poorly activated and weak glute medius and glute max.

So here's how we're going to go about truly fixing that problem.

What we're going to start off with is a band.

Now I'm using a hip circle by Slingshot, but there's a number of different resistance bands you can use.

The first thing we're going to do is a side plank clamshell.

What you're going to do is get that around your knees, you're going to get down on the ground, and you're going to get into a position where your knees are bent slightly.

You're going to side plank, and then from here, open up, and you're going to hold this position for five seconds, down, and then down again.

Now, yes, we're using this top side glute to open, but you will feel this mostly in your downside hip.

Because those lateral glutes on your left hip right now are working hard to keep your body from falling back into this motion, that's the motion of adduction, that's what we want to try to eliminate.

So we want to get those lateral glutes turned on to maintain tension, activate, and keep the body in a good position.

So five second hold, down, and back down.

So that's step one.

The last one that we're going to work on today to fix sort of the weaknesses, sort of the why behind IT band syndrome, is a single leg RDL or Romanian deadlift.

This is a great exercise specifically for the glute max.

Here's what you're going to be doing.

Hand is going to be grabbing the kettlebell opposite your stance leg.

So stand tall, back leg is going to kick straight back.

You're going to drop down, and then back up like this.

So one more time, single leg RDL.

Stand tall, heel kicks straight back, you can put your arm off to the side if you need to for balance, and then back up.

Notice my toe is pointing straight down.

A common fault I will see with the free leg is that the toe will start opening like this.

Now what happened to my hip?

I just opened my hip up to the side.

So that's a very common fault.

I will also see people sort of let that back leg go loose.

And if you try this from there, and then do it where your back leg is straight, kicking that heel back, it's a completely different sensation you'll notice in your stance leg posterior chain.

So if you kick your heel of your free leg straight back and hinge completely at the hip, you will notice a lot more activation in your glute and your hamstring of your stance leg.

And back up.

So that is also the second fix that a lot of people will have problems with.

So something like the single leg RDL, I'll have people do maybe two sets of 10-15 reps on each side.

So let's go through all those one more time.

We're trying to work on the hips, so we have the side plank clamshell.

We have the single leg RDL, or Romanian deadlift.

Those effectively fix why IT band pain is often there in the first place.

Working on glute activation and coordination, strength and stability, starting from the glute med and the glute max, which are then going to fix why the problem's there all the way down at your knee.

I hope you guys liked today's YouTube video.

If you did, please subscribe to my channel, like, comment on the video, let me know how you liked it, or if there's anything else that you want to learn about in next week's video.

Until next time guys, happy squatting.

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